


A Night of Selfishness

by Yukurimi



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, F/F, Shipping, Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-10
Updated: 2019-02-27
Packaged: 2019-10-25 11:45:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17724572
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yukurimi/pseuds/Yukurimi
Summary: Historia's told to fetch magical water from an enchanted lake, but finds the lake's mysterious, charming guardian far more interesting.





	1. Chapter 1

When Historia had first been told that she was to journey to an enchanted lake, bargain with the guardian of said lake, and return with a vial of magical water, she’d had many questions, but thoughts of the stern, harsh stare her inquiries would bring kept her mouth shut and her head bowed, for it was not her place to question her father’s motives.

The journey itself had not been unpleasant, she supposed. It was rather appallingly ordinary; she was shipped out of her father’s sprawling estate on a carriage, with a map rolled out on a sheet of aged, withered parchment. In a simple dress, with nothing but a cloak and a crest-emblazoned broach to identify herself, still she felt curious eyes of commoners watching her whenever she showed herself.

Everyone who saw and recognized her wondered what she was doing, of course. She almost wished she could confide in one of them, acknowledge the surreality of her assigned task.

But that would be breaching confidence. And that would be improper.

Eventually, she’d reached a small town she’d never seen and likely never heard of, where there were lots of people she never spoke to; she went straight on through, to a secluded forest, where she was dropped off and told to follow a solitary, winding trail.

_“You’ll know it when you see it,”_ her father had said to her before she departed, _“but it’ll only reveal itself once a year, so you can’t delay.”_

She’d wondered how it was that a magical lake actually existed and she’d never heard of it; magic was a thing of stories and dreams, lost to time if it’d ever existed at all, or so everyone had always said. But she hadn’t needed to know that, had she?

The forest itself was rather pretty, she supposed. She passed by rocks and could imagine herself scrambling up them, heard the soft trickling of an unseen stream and imagined herself splashing along in the cool running water. The trees had their autumn plumage on full display, letting sunlight fall through a loose web of branches and leaves.

And then, out of nowhere, she saw the air in front of her shimmer and ripple. Ribbons of multi-colored light undulated like lazy floating serpents. She stared for a moment, sure she must have been dreaming, but then moved closer.

She stepped from a world of golden autumn midday into a world shrouded in twilight. The blue sky overhead vanished, swallowed up in an instant by a sprawling canopy of dark leaves. Trees stood all around her, packed together so tightly she could hardly see through them. Where she had tread on fallen, scattered leaves and slightly-overgrown dirt, now lush, vividly-colored grass rose up to the hems of her boots.

When she turned around, she saw the same shimmering light she’d stepped through, encased by an arch of cracked stone. If she squinted, she could see the path she’d come on distorted and garbled through the light.

But, in front of her, something took her breath away. A clearing in the trees, lit from above by a great shower of the purest moonlight she’d ever seen. The trees parted, giving way to a meadow of grass untouched by roots. And a little ways in, there was a structure. A… temple, of sorts—that was the first word to spring to mind. A ruined, ancient temple surrounded by toppled stone blocks. The roof looked barely-there; its absence made the temple seem an outcast amongst the tranquil, untouched purity of the glade.

And through an overgrown stone archway into the temple, she could see a lake. So she moved forwards, walking through the tall grass and climbing over fallen stone blocks to enter the temple.

Inside, a stone ledge wrapped around the border of the lake, which intruded on a floor of tiled marble. The lake shimmered faintly, wreathed in a languidly-dancing, pale blue light. A drowning moon rippled on the surface of the water, full and round and gleaming. Fine, carved stonework surrounded it, pillars and statues and pedestals—all different in stature and form, but joined in verdant commonality by a web of twisting, clinging vines.

A woman knelt by it, haloed by the glow of the lake, back turned. Fickle shadows crawled over her. Wild black hair dipped down to the base of her neck, hanging in spikes.

There was much more scenery to take in, but it all blurred into the background, overshadowed by that woman. She was lithe, wiry, with a body that would take long, curious minutes to explore completely. It was a tight map of inviting muscle that just _didn’t feel right_ going unappreciated. When its owner turned around, and strands of gossamer silver moonlight highlighted a loose, ragged shirt that bared a flat, toned stomach, Historia’s legs turned to pillars of wobbly jelly.

Which was so not-right she almost hated to acknowledge it. She’d come to that glade to make a bargain, not to ogle.

… No matter how ogle-worthy the glade’s denizen was, nor how much her response—a leering, wolfish smirk of a smile—seemed to welcome the attention.

“You look tasty enough to be cut a little slack, but I’m not gonna let you stare forever.”

_Tasty?_ Historia wanted that thought to be indignant, but she wasn’t sure it didn’t rebel and turn dreamy instead. Her imagination could be a rebellious thing, if she let it.

She swallowed, peeling her eyes off the woman and shifting them to the lake. “I meant no offense,” she said, bowing her head slightly.

“Do I look like I care?” The woman snickered, swiveling around and leaning over to sprawl on her side on the ground. “I haven’t gotten many visitors for a while. So it’s your lucky day; I’ll put up with a lot as long as you’re not boring.”

Historia breathed out a relieved sigh, collecting herself and definitely not sneaking a peek at the woman’s long, supple legs—perish the thought; why in the world would she have done that? “My…” She stifled a wince; articulating herself clearly was a struggle, but she scolded herself into remembering proper decorum as she recited her cause. “My father sent me to—”

A long, drawn-out sigh cut her off. “It’s not my day, is it?” the other woman drawled.

Speech came to a strangled pause in Historia’s throat. “I—excuse me?”

“I don’t care about people who aren’t here.” The woman looked towards the lake, then back to Historia, staring with dark, narrow eyes. “So if you want something from me—and why else would you be here?—do us both a favor and do better than that.”

Historia’s mouth gaped awkwardly. She looked down at her dress, at the crest on the broach and cloak she wore; her family’s sigil so often opened doors and bought favors. Rational thought told her that of course a… forest person… wouldn’t care for it, but it still came as a shock.

“Here. I’m feeling generous, so I’ll make it easy for you.” The woman stood up, unfurling and standing tall in a crooked way. She sauntered forwards, dropped her elbow onto an aged stone pedestal and leaned on it, cheek resting on her palm. “What’s your name?”

Again Historia gaped briefly. Everyone knew her, elsewhere. But she fortunately managed to give her name without much of a splutter.

“Hmm. Pretty.” The woman dragged her tongue across her lips—was that a hint of fang Historia saw?—then twisted away. She leapt from the ground to the pedestal she leaned on, then practically pounced at a curved stone archway, climbing up the vines until she sat cross-legged atop it. She looked down, some ten feet off the ground, reached out and beckoned with a crook of lithesome finger. “I’m Ymir. C’mon up. Let’s chat.”

That name had a… delicious exoticness to it, if Historia let herself indulge her fantasies for a moment—which she very definitely did not do.

Instead of doing that, on focusing on the lovely drawl with which Ymir had said her name, she found her eyes flicking to the vines, then dragging upwards to the venerable stone on which Ymir had perched. She looked at Ymir’s shadow-shrouded face, at the dark golden eyes twinkling enigmatically… at the ten-foot drop—which brought to mind images of broken bones that made her legs stubborn and heavy.

“I’ll catch you. If you fall.” Ymir snickered under her breath, like she’d made some kind of secret joke, but Historia just felt like prey. “The vines are strong. You’ll be fine. But, if you’d rather walk away…”

That made Historia’s muscles tighten. She pursed her lips, clenched her hand tightly. “I’m not leaving until I get what—” she bit back a ‘my father,’ replacing it with a tentative, “what I came here for.”

And Ymir’s toothy grin shone like a band of pearls in the moonlight. “Good. Get up here, then.”

Historia grit her teeth, eying the vines clinging to the stone. She stepped closer, reached out and groped for one that felt thick enough to support her.

What gave her pause was the realization that her shadow left the vines dark and gloomy. She felt more than she saw, hands stumbling about navigating by bumps and scrapes.

But Ymir was at the top, watching, and the aloof smirk on her face was somehow encouraging.

So she began her ascent. The wavering of her shadow, in tune with the sinuous ebb and flow of the light radiating from the lake, made the vines seem murky and shapeless. She took her time, plodding up along the stone, testing each handhold before trusting it with the intimate affair of suspending her full weight.

She must’ve been only slight over halfway up when something grabbed her. She froze—it all happened too quickly for her to cry out. A sharp crack, like a lashing whip, a rush of steam—a distant echo of a howl—a gnashing snarl that evoked a gaping, fanged maw. Something plucked her from her verdant handholds, wrenched her through the air like she was a pebble.

She tumbled. Stone rushed up to meet her, smacking heavily against her rump. Her heartbeat sounded in her chest, a frenetic _thump-thump-thump_.

In front of her, plumes of black smoke shrouded Ymir’s right arm, and her face, but an eye, bright red and piercingly vivid, stabbed through it to peer into Historia’s.

Then the smoke vanished, blown away by an invisible gale that took the red eye with it and left a loudly cackling Ymir.

Historia scrambled to sit up and push herself away, then froze when she felt herself sliding off a hard edge. Her eyes snapped wide open, spotting the ground, her arms flailed… and a warm, strong hand caught her by the wrist.

She jerked her head around, and Ymir shot her a smug grin.

“Told you so,” Ymir snarked.

Historia swallowed. “What’re you—?”

Ymir laughed again, but this time it was less of a mad cackle and more of a bashful chuckle. “Sorry if I frightened you. Couldn’t resist showing off a bit.”

“That—that thing you did—what was—?”

Ymir cut her off with a wave of her hand. “We’ll get to that. Come here.” She tugged on Historia’s arm, surprisingly gently pulling her onto solid ground. “I didn’t drag you up here just so I could toss you around, believe it or not.”

Historia skeptically settled on the latter. She sucked in a long, heavy breath. “Why, then?”

“So that you could see better.” Ymir made a grand, sweeping gesture. “Look around for a bit.”

Frowning, Historia did as Ymir asked, taking in the circle of trees surrounding them. Dark, towering things, those trees, rising up from tangled underbrush, knotting together to make a kind of natural palisade.

It was… strangely tranquil. Serene. Silent, now that she went still and listened to it, except for the softening sounds of her own breaths.

“What am I supposed to see?” she asked.

“No one.” Ymir shuffled a bit, letting her legs dangle off the edge of the archway, leaning back and propping herself up on her elbows. “This place? It’s its own little world. And there’s nobody else in it. There’s me, and there’s lucky little you. So… if you’re hoping to persuade me to do something… that’s all you’ve got to work with. I don’t want to hear about anything outside, ‘cause it might as well not exist.”

Historia nodded slowly. She squirmed, for a moment—nobody else around meant nobody to intervene, and Ymir was… well, something.

“Okay,” she said, idly touching the broach she wore on her cloak. “Just the two of us, right?”

“Yep. Just the two of us.” Ymir ran a hand through her hair, craning her neck to look down at the vines. “But, if a dainty thing like you could get up here as easily as you were, I think we’re both in for a few surprises.”

“You expected me to fall?”

“I wondered if you would.” Ymir’s eyes combed over Historia’s dress. “You looked like a prissy daddy’s girl when you walked up.”

Historia gave Ymir an indignant glare, folding her arms. “I’ve done a bit of climbing.” On the trees on her father’s land… when nobody else was looking…

“You sound embarrassed.”

Historia blanched. Was she really that transparent? Flustered, she mumbled: “It’s not very dignified, is it?”

Ymir rested her cheek on her palm. “Do I look like I care?”

“… No.”

“Then, here, it doesn’t matter, does it?”

“I guess not.” Historia spoke without trouble, but she doubted she believed what she’d said. Turning away from those difficult thoughts, she eyed the lake. “I… did want to…”

“Ah. Right. That.” A twitch of Ymir’s lips hinted at disappointment, while tightness in her cheeks made her seem forlorn. “Are you in a hurry?”

The obvious answer was a quick, decisive, “yes.” Her father would be displeased with her if she dawdled, would he not?

Historia looked around again. The glade remained beautiful in its own darkly elegant way, but she realized also how empty it felt. How quiet it sounded. How lonely it seemed.

_Lonely._ Historia looked to Ymir, shook her head, and said, “No. Why?”

Ymir grinned. “It’d be pretty nice of me to just give you some of this magic water, right? Bad news; I’m not that nice. I’m not gonna tell you what my price is, but I am gonna tell you that it’ll get lower and lower the more you feel like indulging me.”

That toothy grin of hers made Historia hear the world “indulge” and spring fancifully to thoughts that made her blush. “What do you mean by that, exactly?”

“You’re making for better conversation than a tree, so that’s a start.” Ymir smirked, trollishly chuckling at her own snark.

Historia made a small laugh. “You really don’t get many visitors here, do you?”

“How many people do you know who’d hear about a mysterious, magical lake and then actually waste their time going out to find it?”

Historia nodded slowly. “And do you always talk to them like this?”

“What did I say about people who aren’t here?”

“That they don’t matter.” That thought felt awkward in her head, but strangely freeing.

“Good.” Ymir idly traced circles on the stone. Historia watched Ymir’s fingers and noted long, scratch-like grooves in the rock. She pictured claws digging into stone, remembered that mysterious black smoke, and wondered why she wasn’t more anxious. “What do you want?” Ymir asked, ending Historia’s musings.

Historia pursed her lips. “You mean right now, or…?”

Ymir shrugged. “Whichever. It’s an open-ended question.”

_Those are the hardest kind to answer._

Historia fumbled for a good response. “I’d…” she latched onto the first want to come to mind. “I’d like to learn more about you.”

Ymir shot her a narrow-eyed look briefly. “That’s awfully polite of you,” she remarked.

It was Historia’s turn to shrug. “How many people live by magical lakes?”

“Not many, I hope.”

“Why do you stay here, then, if it’s so dull?”

“… good question.” Ymir looked down at the lake, her voice turning melancholic. “The only people who ever come here, you know, are the ones who want that water.” She took an uncomfortably long pause. “People say it… well, if you believe all the stories, it can make you live forever, turn dirt into gold, make a pig sprout wings and start writing poetry, and probably a couple dozen other things.”

_You must have come here, once,_ Historia thought but did not say. “So what does it actually do?”

“Who knows? I sure don’t.” Ymir leaned back, then abruptly snapped her face back into a broad grin. “Wanna go for a swim?”

The suddenness of the change in topic and attitude left Historia reeling. “What? But—wouldn’t it—?”

“Nah. It doesn’t do anything, in here. It’s when you take it outside and drink it there that it does stuff. I swim in it all the time. It’s fine.”

Historia looked for the first excuse to come to mind, settling on fingering her skirt. “My dress…”

“Take it off.”

Historia’s grip tightened. Warmth seeped into her cheeks.

“Nervous?” Ymir said.

“N—no.”

“Uh-huh. And in your world, I bet you’re a good liar, too. But, thing is… you’re in _my world._ ” Ymir tilted her head, offering a lopsided smile. “If you wanna do something in here your daddy wouldn’t like… I’m not gonna tell anyone, am I?”

Historia bit her lip. “No,” she said. And she let that word stew in her head for a moment, turned it over and contemplated it and then said it again, this time more resolutely: “No. I guess not.”

“Good answer.” Ymir made a gesture towards the lake. “The water’s great.”

Even thinking about it felt like a small rebellion. Which made Historia realize what a lie it had been to say she wasn’t nervous—but also what a lie it would be to say she wasn’t tempted.

She looked shyly to Ymir, making a plaintive gesture. “Would you…”

“Of course.” Ymir pointedly turned her back, sitting cross-legged facing away from the lake. Historia shot Ymir’s back a small smile, then set about lowering herself down the vines.

Once at the bottom, she leaned against the arch and took a long, deep breath. She felt like there were eyes everywhere, invisible eyes watching her every move. Scrutinizing her. Just touching her dress felt scandalous—not in a not-thrilling way.

She walked over to the lake. Slowly, swallowing silly nerves with every step. The water shimmered; if she felt fanciful, she could have said it gleamed even more brightly than before, as if inviting her closer. She just looked at the water for a little while, letting the tranquil surface lull her. _It’s alright,_ that water seemed to say to her. _You’re safe here._

And, as if to reassure her even further, the water rippled. The reflection on the surface, it changed. Instead of the moon and the trees and her own face, it showed her Ymir, sitting on the arch, clearly looking away.

With a puzzled frown, she turned her head, confirming that the mysterious reflection spoke the truth. Ymir sat there, unmoving, affording Historia as much privacy as she could have in the moment.

With another long breath, Historia looked into the water one more time, then reached up to undo her cloak. The heavy garment fell from her shoulders to the ground, bunching around her ankles. She stepped out of her boots, pausing to feel the cold, lush grass on the ground embracing her feet.


	2. Chapter 2

Historia tossed her dress gently onto the grass, wrapping her arms around herself and casting an anxious look towards a silhouetted Ymir—who hadn’t moved a muscle since the last time Historia had checked on her, or the time before that, or the time before that. It was surprisingly reassuring.

Historia wondered what would happen if she changed her mind, put her clothes on and backed out, but by that point she was already moving towards the ledge overlooking the lake. She felt tingling, naughty thrills running through her with each step she took,

So she slipped into the water, cautiously at first, testing it with the tips of her toes. Half-expecting, maybe, that something would happen. She wasn’t sure if it came as relief or a disappointment that the water felt ordinary. Maybe that wasn’t the word for it, actually, once she took a moment to acclimate to it. It was like any other water she’d stepped foot in, just better, somehow. _Pure_ was the word that sprang to mind, for reasons she couldn’t put her finger on. She felt clean, when her toes dipped underneath the water, nourished as if she’d been tired and filthy all day and only just now realized it. It was cool, by the standards of baths or springs, but warm for a lake.

She lowered herself, probing downwards with her foot in search of a bottom. The water swallowed her leg up to her knee, and then she had no choice but to slide herself off the ledge. Her other leg slide into that aquatic embrace, and she sank down, up to her thighs, then—she braced herself for a stinging chill that surprisingly never came—up to her hips, then her waist.

Finally, when everything from her chest down was submerged, her feet felt something solid and soft. A lakebed, she supposed. She had half a mind to peek her head beneath the surface to see—the reflection stretched out across the lake seemed almost solid, betraying barely even a glimpse of what lay beneath.

A soft thud came from behind her. She turned quickly enough to make a splash, sinking just a bit deeper under the water and wrapping her arms around herself.

Ymir stood up from where she had been crouching by the arch she must’ve just jumped down from. She cracked her neck as she rose. “The water’s great, right?”

Historia, painfully aware of the uneven distribution of clothing in the glade, fought back a bitter battle against a blush trying to take over her cheeks. “Yes,” she said. “It’s… great.”

“Told you so.” Ymir looked down, fingering the hem of her shirt, then shot Historia a smirk. “Do you wanna watch?”

The blush won. Decisively.

“I didn’t think so.” With barely a twitch in her face, Ymir turned and slipped around a corner. “Don’t break anything while I’m not looking.”

Historia frowned. _What is there to…?_ All she saw around her was stone and water.

Although, she supposed, if Ymir was strong enough to toss her around like she’d done before… A lot of thoughts ran through her head, but nothing decisive. The common thread, though, was a craving for answers. The glade, the lake, Ymir herself, everything she saw. So many questions.

The reflection on the lake shimmered. Demanded her attention. It was hard to see from her angle; she stood up straight, raising her head to look a little more closely.

Her face paled. She saw her own face, backlit by the twilight, star-studded sky—which was itself overwhelmed by a massive, black blot. A hunched, black _thing,_ thrice her size or more, exuding plumes of writhing black smoke, with a piercing red eye slicing through the gloom. She thought she saw a great fanged muzzle peeled open, baring rows of gleaming, unnaturally white teeth as big as her fingers. It brought to mind a great black wolf, standing on two legs.

She stared. She should have been terrified; that, she thought she knew.

Water splashed. She lurched, spinning sharply. Her eyes took in the sight of a naked Ymir so briefly she hardly had time to process it. Then Ymir was sinking into the water, svelte body hidden beneath a shiny, moon-reflecting surface.

And Ymir groaned. Rolled her shoulders, slumped against the stony ledge and breathed out a long sigh. “I don’t do this nearly often enough,” she murmured, letting her eyelids droop shut.

A proper, demure woman would not have taken advantage of those closed eyes to drink in the sight of Ymir’s prominent collarbone, nor to dwell on that earlier glimpse of nudity and reconstruct it. Neither of those things. Not a one.

“You don’t have many women catching your eye, do you?”

Historia’s cheeks burned. Her plundering gaze darted upwards, locking with Ymir’s barely-open eye. “I—I beg your pardon?”

“You’re not very subtle.” Ymir made a snort of a laugh and a smirk of a grin. “Lucky for you, it’s cute.”

“Right.” Historia glanced about, shifting awkwardly. Wondered if Ymir was looking at her the same way—that made her want to just dissolve into the lake and never come back out. “So, you…” She fumbled for a different topic; there were far too many questions she wanted to ask. “You don’t swim here very often?”

Ymir laughed again, snickering and not doing a good job of hiding an amused roll of her eyes. “No,” she said. “No, I don’t.”

Historia nodded silently. The heat in her cheeks started to recede, much to her relief. A moment of hesitation passed, and then she too leaned against the ledge. The stone felt rough on her bare back, making her grimace. “What do you do instead, then?”

Silence.

She glanced to the side, frowning. Something flashed across Ymir’s face; sadness, perhaps, or maybe anger. But it was gone in a moment, whatever it was, subsumed by indifference so cool it couldn’t be anything but feigned—and therefore intriguing.

The chuckle that came afterwards felt like a diversion.

The splash of water Ymir flicked into Historia’ face, even more so.

“H—hey!” Historia spluttered, lurching back. “What was that for?”

Ymir shrugged flippantly. “Why not? You looked like you needed to lighten up.”

Would it be silly, petulant even, to splash back? Assuredly so. Downright juvenile, really.

Did Historia giggle when Ymir got a handful of water in her face and yelped? More than a little bit.

The narrow, slitted stare Ymir shot back at her was so intense it became comical. “Oh, _alright,_ ” she said. “If that’s the way—”

Historia splashed her again.

Ymir reeled, twisted away, blustered. She shook her head, which made soaked, slicked hair fling a shower of water droplets and make a hundred little ripples.

The glint in her eyes when she met Historia’s eyes again was bright, piercing, and the most contagiously excited thing Historia had seen all day.

With a gleam of a grin, Ymir heaved her arm through the water, gathering a great wave and chucking it right at Historia’s face. Historia shrieked, turning her back just in time to protect her face. Then she whipped around, eager to return the favor, but all she saw was the tail end of Ymir diving under the surface.

Eyes narrowing, Historia took a breath, pushed off from the ledge, and gave chase.

Or tried to, anyway.

The moment she opened her eyes, she froze. The lake was like nothing she’d ever seen before; motes of flickering, colored light drifted about the water, like little stars. In stark contrast to the unnaturally opaque surface, the depths were almost crystal-clear; she could see the far edge of the lake off in the distance, even flecked and obscured as it was by the mysterious little lights.

And there was Ymir. Her lean, supple body hurtled along, propelled by smooth strokes and powerful kicks. She twisted sinuously about, peering back at Historia—in the clear water, it almost looked like she was flying.

It was mesmerizing. She looked so free, so full of joy and life.

Somehow, that they were both naked barely registered in Historia’s head.

She felt her breath fading, so popped back up to take another, breaching only briefly, eager to plunge back down.

When she did, Ymir was right there, gliding effortlessly around her. Climbing the vines had been one thing, but Historia had never seen someone make swimming look so easy and natural.

Ymir gestured, nudging upwards with her thumb. Historia frowned, then nodded, pushed upwards, and resurfaced. Ymir poked out not far from her, wet skin glistening under the moonlight, and moved closer. “Can I trust you not to freak out?” she asked.

Historia nodded breathlessly. Questions formed on the tip of her tongue, but then Ymir’s arms were around her and she forgot about them all.

“Deep breath,” Ymir said, gliding behind Historia and holding her by the waist. “When we go under, hold tight. Do you trust me?”

The feeling of those muscular limbs embracing her would’ve made her nod weakly no matter what the question was, but Historia’s quiet, “I do,” she thought was earnest.

The quiet “Thanks” that tickled her spine with warm air made her sigh.

“Deep breath,” Ymir said.

Historia nodded, drawing as much air into her lungs as she could.

“Close your eyes.”

Historia closed her eyes.

A sharp crack, a rush of steam; billowing warmth rushed out to surround Historia, suffusing her skin with exhilarating heat. The arms around her waist seemed to swell, soaked fur cozying up to her stomach and chest. She quelled her fears, relaxed against Ymir’s inhuman body.

And then they moved. Clutched tightly to Ymir’s torso, Historia was along for the ride, like she was light as a feather. Rushing air caressed her cheeks for a brief moment, and then she plunged headfirst into water.

She opened her eyes, drinking in the ocean of liquid starlight once more, glancing down at the bestial limbs embracing her, at the clawed hands that could so easily shred her. But she held on tight, clinging to Ymir’s arms.

They cut through the water like a knife. Under Ymir’s strength, they hurtled through the field of stars like a blazing comet. Lights sped by them, glittering in dozens of different colors. She looked to her left, starstruck, and they turned left, dipping down to swoop through a cluster of lights. She whipped her head to the right and Ymir twisted them around.

Her heart raced. She beamed; if she were above the surface, she’d have been whooping and laughing the whole time. Ymir swept her along through a field of stars, dazzling her with majesty and thrilling her with speed.

Moments before Historia felt her breath about to give, Ymir twisted, dipped down to the very bottom of the lake, and leaped.

The water parted. Open air enveloped the top of her head, then her gasping mouth, then her torso, then her hips, then her legs, then the tips of her toes—and still they rose. She had time to gasp; they seemed to hang, suspended at the zenith of Ymir’s jump, the lake stretched out beneath them, reflecting the image of the pair of them embracing in the air. Her heart raced, caught between beautiful serenity and thrilling excitement.

Then the descent began, and she toppled squarely into the latter. The air screamed past her head. She gripped Ymir’s arm a little more tightly, pulling in a breath. The water flew up towards her, faster and faster and faster—

At the very last second, Ymir spun them around and took the impact on her own back. Historia plunged under the water, slowing to a languid halt surrounded by twinkling water.

A few moments later, she was being hauled out of the water by smooth, damp human hands. Ymir wriggled up onto the ledge and they both tumbled off onto the grass, where Historia rolled onto her back.

And Ymir was there. She was right there, shining with a fresh coat of water, all that enticing muscle begging for attention—Historia felt her heart pounding away in her chest, felt the moment sweeping her up and dragging her along for the ride.

_There’s no one else here. Just me. Just her._

Historia kissed Ymir.

Was it stupid? Maybe. Was there anyone there to tell her that? Not a soul.

Did it feel good? Did it tickle her senses to feel Ymir reciprocating, to be cradled by tightly-coiled warmth, to indulge a flight of fancy and revel in the impulsiveness, savor the bonfire of delight roaring to life in her core?

Some questions had answers so obvious it wasn’t even worth pondering them.

When the kiss ended, she was left panting. Desperate. Yearning. Ymir ran a hand through her hair, brushing a clingy strand out of her face, and the gesture felt achingly chaste.

Ymir’s eyes made up for it. They glittered; she thought for a moment she saw the lights that haunted the lake blazing in Ymir’s gaze.

Ymir blinked. Her eyes stayed closed for a far-too-long moment; when they opened, Historia thought they were… misty? No, that—that couldn’t have been right, could it?

The raw, smoldering bravado that crept back into them felt ever-so-slightly hollow. But then Historia felt strong, slender fingers darting up her leg, and she couldn’t find it in herself to complain about a thing.

“Thanks for letting me do that,” Ymir whispered. Her voice was almost a growl, deep and thick and velvety-smooth. Her lips peeled back to reveal a broad, toothy grin. Her hot breath glided on Historia’s skin. “Do you feel like indulging me a little more?”

Those fingers crawled up higher, dancing along Historia’s naked thigh. She squirmed. She felt like putty underneath Ymir’s fingers, small and soft and pliable. She nodded weakly, stifling a gasp.

“Good.” Ymir distracted from a crack in her voice with an enveloping kiss. Her breath invaded Historia’s mouth, stuffing her full of restless warmth.

She had no idea what was coming, and that was exactly what made her so confident it was going to be wonderful.

The absurdity of it all—there she was, in a place not on any map, with a woman she’d never seen before, having… _things done_ to her she’d never thought of—barely registered in her head. Her father, all the pressures for decorum and manners and… and everything else, they just melted away as soon as she started to imagine any of them.

Because they weren’t there. They couldn’t touch her, not where she was. There were only two people in the glade.


	3. Chapter 3

There was no sunrise in that eternal twilight. The whole time Ymir had been there, she’d never seen anything but a moon hanging overhead, watching in silence with a legion of stagnant stars swarming around it. She didn’t want to think about how time worked there.

Somehow, though, she felt rested when her eyelids peeled open. She stared up at the same moon she’d seen far too many times before. The same grass she’d laid in far too many times brushed against her sides.

But, of course, she realized when she felt something soft and warm and smooth and looked down to see the little golden-haired girl— _Historia,_ she remembered—lying beside her, head resting on her shoulder, it was a very different… day, night, whatever it was.

She shut her eyes again. It hurt to keep them open.

Historia sighed in her sleep, curling a little closer.

Ymir clenched her teeth, glowered at nothing in particular, and—carefully—peeled away from Historia to stand up. She paused once on her feet, staring for a moment to assure herself that Historia still slept.

She seemed still, anyway. She murmured quiet little nothings, stirring a bit in the grass.

Ymir turned her head away, scowling.

A few moments later, she was perched on top of that archway she liked to sit on, sitting cross-legged and staring at the… portal, gateway, door, whatever it was—a dozen different people called it a dozen different things, all just as wrong as any other.

They all said it shimmered, though. Or something like that—she’d heard it before; someone came through searching for a magical lake, but of course they’d stop to ask what the glowing door thing was.

She stared through that doorway, at the trees on the other side of it, wondering if she could even remember what that shimmer looked like.

_Probably not._

She held up her hand, turning it over in front of her face, idly rubbing her fingers together.

How she knew what to do, she never could explain—she almost hoped she’d forget, one day, try flex that invisible, shapeless muscle and find it’d left her entirely.

But, as she let her fingers wander in the ear, she saw them leaving streaks of billowing black smoke, saw her fingernails distorting into claws, saw her forearm bulging, saw black fur oozing out like she’d watched a decade of grass growth packed into half a second.

And when she indulged herself and let out a growl, it was a deep, guttural, gnashing, _bestial_ growl.

“Ymir?”

The sound of her name made her lurch and swivel. She snapped her head around, peering down to see Historia sitting in the grass, holding her dress to her chest to cover herself, looking up at her.

Ymir balled her hand into a fist that she hid by her side as she turned her back. A thought saw her arm snapping back to her regular human one. “The water you want’s right there. Take as much as you need.”

“You… you’re just…” Historia’s voice cracked and wavered. “That’s it?”

“That’s… yeah. That’s how it usually works.” Lingering for a few long moments, staring off at the forest of nothings in front of her, she eventually, with a labored sigh, slipped off the archway, twisting in the air to land on her feet. “You come here, you make a deal with me, you walk away with magic water.”

“But—” Rustling grass told her Historia was standing up. Then delicate fingers wrapped around her hand, and she was biting back an urge to lurch away. “But we never made a deal, and—”

“No. We didn’t.” Ymir glowered at the stone in front of her, then laboriously twisted to look at Historia. “You gave me something. I can’t thank you with much else.”

“What’re you talking about? There’s just…” Historia shook her head, squeezing Ymir’s hand, staring at her with wide, sparkling blue eyes. “There’s so much I still don’t know about you. You’ve barely said a thing about yourself.”

“What do you want me to say?”

“I don’t know. You told me I could say whatever I wanted here. Shouldn’t you be allowed to do the same?”

_I did say that, didn’t I?_

But it wasn’t the same for her, though, was it? Anyone who came to see her could say whatever they wanted; who was Ymir gonna tell but the trees? But if she said anything… then her visitors would leave with stories to tell. They’d buy drinks and tell the story of the screwed-up monster they met in the glade.

Historia squeezed her hand a little harder. “Please?”

Ymir clenched her teeth, training her attention on Historia’s eyes.

And memories flashed through her head. Recent ones, and yet already seeming sweetened by nostalgia. In her head, they were playing in the lake. Splashing at each other, marveling at the pretty lights; she remembered how starstruck Historia had been, how vibrant her joy had been, how full of life it made that desolate, lonely lake.

“Alright. Get dressed. I’ll… tell you what you want to know.”

Historia smiled up at her.

A little while later, after they’d pulled their clothes back on, they sat in silence. Ymir sat on the arch, chin propped up on her hands, and Historia sat next to her, hands clasped primly in her lap, feet dangling off the edge. If the desire to sate her curiosity left her with impatience, she stubbornly refused to give in.

Talking was hard, after all. Historia understood that. Or maybe she didn’t, and maybe she couldn’t, but she just wouldn’t be _her_ if she didn’t try to.

Which was a stupid thing to think. They’d known each other for, what a few hours, if that? And they’d never see each other again, after they parted—nobody who drank from the lake ever wanted to come back for more.

Historia looked at her. Not expectantly. Not insistently.

And Ymir said nothing. Where was she even supposed to start?

“Would you rather I just go?” Historia said. Her voice was quiet, soft and so achingly tragic.

There was probably a clever answer to that. Ymir gave a stupid—but true—one instead: “No. You gave me a better day than I’ve had in years. I owe you.”

“I’m glad.” Historia smiled. “But you did the same thing for me. So—”

Ymir cut her off with a snort of a laugh. “When you came here, you couldn’t tell me a thing but what somebody told you to say. Now you’re asking something for yourself.”

Historia’s smile faltered, turning into a frown. Then she cocked her head quizzically. “Why does that matter so much to you?”

Something visceral and unpleasant and awful coiled in Ymir’s gut. She looked at the wall of trees surrounding them. “Who knows?” she murmured.

But she could sympathize with a life stripped of freedom.

“How much do you know about this place?” she asked.

Historia shook her head. “Not much.”

“The water’s magic. That part you must’ve known, right?” Ymir said; a nod prompted her to continue. “Thought so. If you drink from it… well, if you do it here, it won’t do a thing. It’s cruel like that. But if you drink it outside…” She grimaced, glancing down at her hand and picturing the claw she could turn it into.

“What’ll it do?” Historia asked.

“That’s the thing. You don’t know for sure, until you drink it. It’ll grant you a wish.” She remembered that day so vividly; the first hints of that unnatural strength surging through her veins, the rush of excitement and vigor that came with that inhuman _power._ She’d thrown her head back, peeled that fanged maw wide open, and howled, announcing her gift to anyone who’d hear her.

But then the world had spun. Then the ground beneath her feet gave way. Then she fell, through a twisting void blacker than anything she’d seen, and then she’d landed in a cursed glade and stared at a hauntingly empty arch.

“But there’s a price,” she said. “There’s always a price. It… reaches into your brain, finds the nastiest nightmare you’ve ever had, and makes it real.”

“… You drank from it, didn’t you?”

Ymir looked at Historia out the corner of her eye, then down again and muttered. “Was it that obvious?”

“Why else would you have come here?” Historia said. She swiveled “You liked showing off. That… thing you do, where you, you know… that’s what you wished for, right?”

“Something like that. I wanted to be strong enough to do whatever I wanted. I drank from that lake… and it trapped me in a glade where I can’t do anything.”

“This is your nightmare.”

“Yeah. Yeah, I guess it is.”

Historia slumped back. Her shoulders fell, her hands wringing in her lap. She exuded disappointment mixed with the kindest sort of pity.  “I was going to ask if you could come back with me,” she said; Ymir thought she felt both their hearts cracking just a little bit.

“Why in the world would you want that?”

“Because you let me do whatever I want.”

Ymir grit her teeth. “You can always do whatever you want.”

“You know what I mean, though. There’s a price to it. People wouldn’t like me if I did all the things I wanted.” She looked up, shifted a bit closer, and put her hand on Ymir’s shoulder. The melancholy and haunted dourness just melted away. “So when I came here, and you told me none of that mattered, it was just… magical.” The joy in her voice was an antidote to sorrow as much as it was a source of it.

“I was telling the truth. What does your father even want this stuff for, anyway?”

Historia opened her mouth, let it hang placidly for a moment, then looked away.

Ymir blinked. By her side, her hand instinctively clenched. “You don’t even know, do you?”

“It wasn’t my place to ask” was all Historia said to that.

“There’s being proper, and then there’s being spineless.” Ymir ground her teeth together, then hung her head and sighed. “But you already know that, don’t you? Alright, look—” Tightness came to her chest, but she pushed through it to speak. “You can’t stay here forever. Sooner or later, you’re taking some of that water and you’re stepping through that door. Once you’re through…” She reached to wrap her fingers around Historia’s hand, squeezing it gently. “Do something that makes you happy. I don’t care what, just do it. And if it annoys someone else, then—just once, tell yourself that’s not your problem.”

“Okay.”

Ymir gave Historia a sharp look. “Promise.”

Historia nodded. “I promise.”

“Good.” Ymir looked away, wishing she could be more satisfied than she felt. “That’s good.”

She wasn’t sure what to say next, so she said nothing. Historia went silent too, and they just sat there for a while, staring at nothing in particular. Neither of them wanted to move, Ymir supposed.

“You know…” Her mouth had opened without thinking, and then she was stuck. Historia looked at her expectantly, so she stumbled on. “I don’t get a lot of visitors, and… most of them, I’m alright forgetting about.”

Why was she talking? Everything she said just made things harder. She should shut up before she made a bigger mess.

“But I’m going to miss you,” she murmured, because last words needed to count for more than most.

Historia looked away, back at the lake, then nodded, offered a small, sad smile, and leaned in for one last hug. She wrapped her arms around Ymir’s shoulders, gifting her another few long, precious seconds of closeness and warmth. She said something—it was probably sweet and heartfelt and oozing sappy earnestness. Her lips pressed delicately to Ymir’s cheek, then drew back.

And then she pulled away. Ymir stared forwards, trying to block out the rustling of fabric, the twisting of vines, and the eventual pop of a stopper from her ears.

A few moments later, she was watching Historia walk towards a callously empty archway, pause in front of it to look back one more time, and then stepping forwards to vanish, swallowed up by heartless absence.

***

Historia stepped through the shining doorway and was greeted by leaves crunching under her feet and harsh sunlight stealing her sight. She winced, holding a hand to her face to shield her eyes.

When her sight returned and a golden autumn morning revealed itself, when vibrant-yet-muted trees flaunted their dying plumage, she turned her back on it all.

And saw nothing. Or something, anyway—she saw the winding trail—but nothing that felt important. No shimmer. No flickering light. No portal to a star-studded lake.

But she looked down at the vial in her hand—proof that it had all been real. The water sparkled, as if calling out to her. If anything, it gleamed bright still now that it was separated from its home.

_Home._

Historia thought of that word. She pictured what it meant to her.

Then she thought of Ymir.

And she thought of a promise.

She opened up the vial. How impulsive of her. How improper. How selfish.

_Something that makes me happy._

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading, if you've made it this far!
> 
> I'm in the process of editing the remaining chapters—there's 4-5-ish thousand words left—so if all goes smoothly they'll be coming out pretty soon.


End file.
